After i3 and i8 Comes i5, BMW’s Next Green Machine

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BMW’s i strategy has been only a partial success. It was launched to great fanfare with the i3 in the summer of 2013, with CEO Norbert Reithofer proclaiming: “what the mobile phone did for communication, electric mobility will do for individual mobility.” But the i3 hasn’t done much for BMW’s bottom line, as its sales have fallen well below expectations. Suppliers are livid, and when the microphones are off, BMW executives admit that while there was an initial rush “that we couldn’t serve,” that hype is now over. The i8 (pictured above) is a happier story. BMW has no trouble moving its plug-in-hybrid sports car in the low volumes it had planned, although the claimed waiting list of two-to-three years is fiction.

Despite these mixed results, a third i model could be on its way. A report in the German magazine Auto Bild (via BMW Blog) claims it will be called i5 and will come to market toward the end of the decade. The spacious sedan will use a plug-in-hybrid powertrain that cranks out a total of 640 horsepower. The plug-in-hybrid technology will be shared with upcoming BMW passenger cars; the gasoline engine could be either a three- or a four-cylinder unit, and it will work as a booster, as in the i8—not merely as a range extender like the Taiwanese-built Kymco scooter engine that’s optional in the i3.

We know BMW has been putting a possible i5 through clinics, asking potential customers what they might think of such a family car. But the new CEO, Harald Krüger, is known to take a much more cautious approach than his predecessor and had initially taken a wait-and-see attitude. If a BMW i5 does come to market, it will compete head-on with the upcoming all-electric Porsche Panamera, Audi’s Q5-based crossover coupe EV, and, of course, the Tesla Model S.